Some time in the past, before the ice age, most of western North America (and probably the whole world) was accurately mapped by a technologically advanced people. Who these people were and what technology they used is lost to us, but their maps remain as evidence that they did indeed accomplish the task. These ancient source maps were used by mapmakers in the 1600 to 1700s to fill in the vast unknown areas on the western side of North America. The recent mapmakers had no idea what was there, nor did anyone else, but they had source maps that showed the area as an island and they used them to fill in the gaps.

When were these source maps made?

They had to be made before the end of the ice age, because at the end of the ice age, the great ice dam holding back water in a huge lake finally gave way and the Grand Canyon was carved in just a few weeks. The Grand Canyon does not appear on any maps of California as an island that I have found, and is certainly not on the map used for this study, the Vingboons map of 1651.

In fact, on the Vingboons map, two rivers cross the location of the Grand Canyon. This creates a problem, because the ice age supposedly reached a maximum 18,000 years ago putting the date for modern man well before that. This pushes the date back into the realm of the Neanderthals, or even into the Paleolithic period, when we were supposed to be only capable of using stone tools.

An even greater problem is that the map also had to predate the uplift of the Nevada-Utah-Wyoming area that followed the end of the latest continental drift event in North America. (see Wikipedia, Farallon plate) According to continental drift theory, when the continents spread apart, the North America continental plate was pushed over an oceanic plate, which was forced down into the mantle of the earth.

The lighter minerals floated up against the bottom of North America, under the Nevada-Utah-Wyoming area. This area was lifted up from sea level (at least in Nevada, where the map shows where the sea encroached) to over 7,000 feet elevation in central Nevada, and similarly across all three states. The routes of rivers changed.

The Rio Grande, shown on the Vingboons map as the Rio de Norte, which used to flow into the Gulf of California, was forced to flow to the Gulf of Mexico. The map places a geologically recent date on continental uplift, the uplift having happened after the map was made, putting it within the historical presence of humans on earth.

Unfortunately, geology dates the North American continental drift events to the Jurassic period, 200,000,000 to 150,000,000 years ago. How will Science deal with the loss of 150,000,000 years? Since it requires abandoning a well entrenched worldview, it is most likely that the vast majority of academia will simply ignore this study and its implications.

The French La Californie ou Nouvelle Caroline of 1720 Also Showed California as an Island

In the following series of articles, I analyze the Johannes Vingboons â€śCalifornia as an Islandâ€ť map area by area. We will see that the makers of the original map possessed a detailed knowledge of the geography of western North America. Correlation of features on the map to actual locations demonstrates that the map is very accurate.

After the analysis of the map I have included some information on the historical mapmaking and exploration of this area by the Spanish after the arrival of Columbus. The Spanish were extremely slow to explore this area, and the information they had was not allowed to be made public because they needed to protect information on their trade routes from their competitors. Vingboons was not using Spanish information to present California as an island.

These articles are my work and the result of my research. I have referenced all the sources I have used. None of these sources presents â€śCalifornia as an Islandâ€ť as anything more than a myth.

I graduated from UCLA in 1976 from the School of Engineering. I followed the course of study in chemical engineering. I was introduced to the whole topic of California as an island in about 2008 by Cliff Paiva, who was also researching the locations of features on the map. We have taken different paths in our efforts to decipher the map, but I much appreciate Cliffâ€™s getting me started.

If you have any questions regarding these articles, you can email me at don@californiaasanisland.org

Photo:Silbury Hill, Wiltshire which may have been part of an ancient navigational aid for prehistoric man Photo: SWNS

Prehistoric man navigated his way across England using a crude version of sat nav based on stone circle markers, historians have claimed.

They were able to travel between settlements with pinpoint accuracy thanks to a complex network of hilltop monuments.

These covered much of southern England and Wales and included now famous landmarks such as Stonehenge and The Mount.

New research suggests that they were built on a connecting grid of isosceles triangles that ‘point’ to the next site. Many are 100 miles or more away, but GPS co-ordinates show all are accurate to within 100 metres. This provided a simple way for ancient Britons to navigate successfully from A to B without the need for maps.

According to historian and writer Tom Brooks, the findings show that Britain’s Stone Age ancestors were ”sophisticated engineers” and far from a barbaric race.

Mr Brooks, from Honiton, Devon, studied all known prehistoric sites as part of his research.

He said: ”To create these triangles with such accuracy would have required a complex understanding of geometry.

”The sides of some of the triangles are over 100 miles across on each side and yet the distances are accurate to within 100 metres. You cannot do that by chance.

”So advanced, sophisticated and accurate is the geometrical surveying now discovered, that we must review fundamentally the perception of our Stone Age forebears as primitive, or conclude that they received some form of external guidance.

Using GPS co-ordinates, he plotted a course between the monuments and noted their positions to each other.

He found that they all lie on a vast geometric grid made up of isosceles ‘triangles’. Each triangle has two sides of the same length and ‘point’ to the next settlement.

Thus, anyone standing on the site of Stonehenge in Wiltshire could have navigated their way to Lanyon Quoit in Cornwall without a map.

Mr Brooks believes many of the Stone Age sites were created 5,000 years ago by an expanding population recovering from the trauma of the Ice Age. (Or the flood? s8int.com)

Lower ground and valleys would have been reduced to bog and marshes, and people would have naturally sought higher ground to settle.

He said: ”After the Ice Age, the territory would have been pretty daunting for everyone. There was an expanding population and people were beginning to explore.

”They would have sought sanctuary on high ground and these positions would also have given clear vantage points across the land with clear visibility untarnished by pollution.

”The triangle navigation system may have been used for trading routes among the expanding population and also been used by workers to create social paths back to their families while they were working on these new sites.”

Mr Brooks now hopes his findings will inspire further research into the navigation methods of ancient Britons.

He said: ”Created more than 2,000 years before the Greeks were supposed to have discovered such geometry, it remains one of the world’s biggest civil engineering projects. ”It was a breathtaking and complex undertaking by a people of profound industry and vision. We must revise our thinking of what’s gone before.”

‘Prehistoric Geometry in Britain: the Discoveries of Tom Brooks’ is now on sale priced ÂŁ13.90.

(Astigan.com) â€” Recent mapping of a number of raised beach ridges on the north coast of Greenland suggests that the ice cover in the Arctic Ocean was greatly reduced some 6000-7000 years ago. The Arctic Ocean may have been periodically ice free.

â€ťThe climate in the northern regions has never been milder since the last Ice Age than it was about 6000-7000 years ago. We still donâ€™t know whether the Arctic Ocean was completely ice free, but there was more open water in the area north of Greenland than there is today,â€ť says Astrid LysĂĄ, a geologist and researcher at the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU).

Shore features

Together with her NGU colleague, Eiliv Larsen, she has worked on the north coast of Greenland with a group of scientists from the University of Copenhagen, mapping sea-level changes and studying a number of shore features. She has also collected samples of driftwood that originated from Siberia or Alaska and had these dated, and has collected shells and microfossils from shore sediments.

â€ťThe architecture of a sandy shore depends partly on whether wave activity or pack ice has influenced its formation. Beach ridges, which are generally distinct, very long, broad features running parallel to the shoreline, form when there is wave activity and occasional storms. This requires periodically open water,â€ť Astrid LysĂĄ tells me.

Pack-ice ridges which form when drift ice is pressed onto the seashore piling up shore sediments that lie in its path, have a completely different character. They are generally shorter, narrower and more irregular in shape.

Open sea

â€ťThe beach ridges which we have had dated to about 6000-7000 years ago were shaped by wave activity,â€ť says Astrid LysĂĄ. They are located at the mouth of Independence Fjord in North Greenland, on an open, flat plain facing directly onto the Arctic Ocean. Today, drift ice forms a continuous cover from the land here. Astrid LysĂĄ says that such old beach formations require that the sea all the way to the North Pole was periodically ice free for a long time.

â€ťThis stands in sharp contrast to the present-day situation where only ridges piled up by pack ice are being formed,â€ť she says.

However, the scientists are very careful about drawing parallels with the present-day trend in the Arctic Ocean where the cover of sea ice seems to be decreasing.

â€śChanges that took place 6000-7000 years ago were controlled by other climatic forces than those which seem to dominate today,â€ť Astrid LysĂĄ believes.

Inuit immigration

The mapping at 82 degrees North took place in summer 2007 as part of the LongTerm project, a sub-project of the major International Polar Year project, SciencePub. The scientists also studied ruined settlements dating from the first Inuit immigration to these desolate coasts.

The first people from Alaska and Canada, called the Independence I Culture, travelled north-east as far as they could go on land as long ago as 4000-4500 years ago. The scientists have found out that drift ice had formed on the sea again in this period, which was essential for the Inuit in connection with their hunting. No beach ridges have been formed since then.

â€ťSeals and driftwood were absolutely vital if they were to survive. They needed seals for food and clothing, and driftwood for fuel when the temperature crept towards minus 50 degrees. For us, it is inconceivable and extremely impressive,â€ť says Eiliv Larsen, the NGU scientist and geologist.